The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror

Beautifully written, but if there was a point to those stories I missed it. All of the stories ended the exact same way, with a twist or new development at the last sentence and no resolution. Open ends are one thing, this is another. Also I'm unsure why this is packaged as a horror collection when it's dark literary fiction at best.

This was so lacking in ‘terror' I can't believe the title or marketing. The first story was a bit creepy but that was about it. Not one for me I'm afraid.

The “doll-master” is the first short story I have read that was written by Joyce Carol Oates and I was impressed and creeped out by the story. For anyone that did not understand the twist in the story Robbie kidnapped and killed all the missing children and made them into the “found dolls” he was talking about in the story, if you read carefully you can figure out the plot of the story before you reach the end. Robbie kept referring to the way the skin of the dolls looked or that the missing children had “gone away”
One of the “found dolls” looked different to the others, they had “taffy-coloured skin of the finest rubber that so resembled human flesh, you shivered as your fingertips caressed his face and felt a semblance of warmth, as of capillaries close beneath the surface of the skin” The way the child's legs are described is creepy as well “his legs were well-formed with a look of sinewy muscle, more difined than his sister-doll's legs” His victims were his “dolls” The way the stkry ends is also quite creepy and the outcome is unknown.

I don't understand the point of the second short story and I was expecting all the stories to be horror related, so it was boring to read. Was it murder or self defense? This story was disappointing to read, as is the case with authors that write work that fits into many genres, it is a mixture of work I like, hate, or it was boring and I didn't understand the point of it.